It starts with a little shaky planning on car rides, but it ended up fine. Me, Alaan, Janus, Waisz, MorbId, Lokii and Kez went there. We didn't meet up with Zair or RK due to the fact that one car was Waisz dad which probably didn't want to meet up with strange internet folk and Alaan's car was following it and didn't want to get lost.
We get to the theatre and have no trouble with finding seats or tickets. The show started with the arrival of the maestro onto the stage which was also on the 3 big TVs above the set. This was followed by a shocking appearance by Nobuo Uematsu who arrived and recieved tremendous amounts of applause and cheers. He took his seat. The lights dimmed and the band opened up with Liberi Fatali from FF8 complete with the opening cutscenes from the game played on the big screens.
After the round of applause, the Master of Ceremonies introduced the band, gave thanks to Nobuo for showing up and set the stage for the next set of songs. First up was Zanarkand from FFX which was accompanied by Yuna's sending cinema. After that was Terra's Theme from FF6 and the Theme of Love from FF4.
Some more words from the MC went on after those 3 songs and the next 3 were introduced. Dear Friends from FF5 was played in honor of the tour's name. It was accompanied by this guitar player who was seriously old. This guy had to be at least 70, but he played amazingly well. After that was Vamo' Alla Flamenco from FFIX which had a cutscene with Vivi in it which was met with massive amounts of applause from the audience. Love Grows from FF8 was also met with significant applause. It was kind of odd hearing it while they played the invasion cutscenest though. The famous dance scene was played as well.
Intermission came and many of us bought t-shirts, I bought an overpriced program and Waisz bought an overpriced poster with a fake Nobuo signature on it. We went back into our seats and I saw many people with SPs on. I though "Hey, maybe some people are in Pictochat on their DSes". I went into a channel and no one was on. So I shouted "HAY GET IN PICTOCHAT" and like 30 seconds later, there were like 15 people in the chatroom. Many amusing pictures arose like a rendition of Nobuo and Goatse man.
The fun and games ended only to bring tears of both joy and sadness as after a short speech of how Aerith is a character that represents beauty, sadness, and hope, they played her theme in a manner I have not heard so beautiful before. I'll admit to shedding a few tears when they played the small cutscene with her from the beginning, but overall I kept my composure and (along with several other people) gave a standing ovation after the song was played. Aerith's Theme was followed by Not Alone from FFIX which had more neat cutscene goodness and Ronafure from Final Fantasy XI.
More speeches from the MC and a goodbye from him was followed by an awesome Final Fantasy I, II, and III medley which contained a great deal of kick ass including an absolutely amazing rendition of the Final Fantasy II Castle Theme. I was impressed. After that was a new song that will be appearing in Advent Children. No cutscenes though. Was kind of disappointed by that, but I'll get over it. They finished up with the general ending theme of Final Fantasy (just titled Final Fantasy in my program).
After the final song was played, Nobuo was brought on stage by the Maestro to make a speech and HUGE amounts of ovation (standing even) were given to him. He asked several questions to the audience (via translator) about our general area (Chicagoland, out of state, overseas, and he asked if any were from outer space because of the mass clapping and jeering from the overseas question.) Funny thing about Nobuo was that he was more downdressed than most of the people there. It was not really a formal event as I had thought. (I ended up giving up on trying to be formal and wore jeans and a t-shirt.)
He brought up some questions about if we had heard of his rock band The Black Mages which was met with more applause and cheering. He was talking about possible concerts in the future with them playing. I would be MOST excited to go to one of those.
After his questions and thanks to the audience and orchestra, he asked us if what was played was enough. The obvious answer was no, so he called for an encore. The choir that sung Liberi Fatali came onstage and was met with exorberant amounts of whistling, cheering and clapping as we knew what was coming. One Winged Angel was played and all was right with the world. I may not like Sephiroth, but damn that's a kickass song. After it finished, we left feeling quite happy with ourselves.
I thought it would've been funny if the choir came out and the band started playing Eyes on Me, but I think that's just because I'm an evil bastard.
In short, we had a great deal of fun. 
I, too, would love to see The Black Mages in concert. Kegwen fucked around with this message on 02-20-2005 at 02:49 AM.
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There was much rejoicing when Kegwen said this:
Sounds like it was fucking amazing. I'm jealous.I, too, would love to see The Black Mages in concert.
I second that motion
The whole concert was great. I want to be seeing it again right now. 
I want to hear that orchestral...So where's the illegal recording *nudge*
(And your terminology makes this music major cry.. Band=Orchestra I'm assuming) Cobalt Katze fucked around with this message on 02-20-2005 at 01:44 PM.
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Cobalt Katze had this to say about Optimus Prime:
Ronfaure!? Holy shitI want to hear that orchestral...
So where's the illegal recording *nudge*
I would definitely respect the ochestra too much to make/get it, and there's already a similar ochestra recording out there.
If you wanted to hear it, you should've gone to the concert 
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Verily, Waisz doth proclaim:
I would definitely respect the ochestra too much to make/get it, and there's already a similar ochestra recording out there.If you wanted to hear it, you should've gone to the concert
I was just kidding 
And yeah.. Chicago =/= Seattle unfortunately, I would have gone if I could.
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Cobalt Katze thought this was the Ricky Martin Fan Club Forum and wrote:
I was just kiddingAnd yeah.. Chicago =/= Seattle unfortunately, I would have gone if I could.
Road trip to San Francisco when it comes that way!
And the concert was much awesome.
Nobuo Uematsu seemed a little surprised by the level of enthusiasm, heh. Through the translator, he told the crowd, "If you keep shouting like that, you won't have any voice left tomorrow.." at one point.
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MorbId obviously shouldn't have said:
Yes, the concert was amazing. There's a few more songs I also would've liked to hear, but the selections were excellent. One Winged Angel, orchestrated, was godly.Nobuo Uematsu seemed a little surprised by the level of enthusiasm, heh. Through the translator, he told the crowd, "If you keep shouting like that, you won't have any voice left tomorrow.." at one point.
There was just a little enthusiasm there. He'd say something not really worthy of applause at all and the whole place would errupt. Though the crowd was louder when One Winged Angel started playing.
And Gains, sorry Sephiroth killed your woman but he's still the coolest character in all of Final Fantasy.
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This insanity brought to you by MorbId:
Yes, the concert was amazing. There's a few more songs I also would've liked to hear, but the selections were excellent. One Winged Angel, orchestrated, was godly.Nobuo Uematsu seemed a little surprised by the level of enthusiasm, heh. Through the translator, he told the crowd, "If you keep shouting like that, you won't have any voice left tomorrow.." at one point.
Yeah... I'm gonna have to disagree there...
He was definitely expecting that, and he was milking us for more applause. You never admit to being good at something in Japan either directly or indirectly. It would only be natural for him to be extremely modest about his own work. It doesn't mean he doesn't like hearing the shouting, though, and by saying things like that, he got us to do it more.
During the intermisson, I waited in a long line and walked away with a white T-Shirt, Zair waited in a long line and walked away a little thinner. I think I made the better choice.
On the drive home we discussed topics ranging from religion, to movies to Constantine, a mix of religion and movies. I was going to take pictures, but the theater prohibited it. I was going to tailgate, but we would have been two college guys tailgating at the wrong concert which quite possibly involved Spongebob on ice. I was going to finish this sentence, but I forgot what I was goin
